Black Friday brings bounty of hardware discounts

Black Friday is upon us, and online retailers aren't waiting for Cyber Monday to get in on the action. Newegg has a large collection of Black Friday deals, and we've singled out a few of the more interesting ones. As one might expect, there isn't a hard drive in the bunch. There are, however, plenty of tantalizing discounts on solid-state alternatives to mechanical storage.

Let's start with Corsair's Force Series 9 SSD, whose 90GB variant is on sale for $130 before a mail-in rebate that'll knock the drive down to an even $100. Not to be outdone, Intel's slightly smaller 320 Series 80GB SSD has been slashed to $150. A mail-in rebate will drop the effective price down to just $80, and Newegg is throwing in a $10 gift card on top of that. OCZ's Agility 3 is also on sale, with the 120GB version down to $120 after rebate. Need more storage? The 240GB flavor can be had for $300 after a $30 mail-in rebate.

I know, rebates are lame. But most of Newegg's Black Friday deals include them in one form or another, usually after a hefty initial discount. If you don't want to wait and hope for a cheque in the mail, Intel's Core i5-2500K is 10% off without having to jump through any hoops. Rosewill's RK-9000RE mechanical keyboard, which uses red Cherry switches, is selling for $50 off at just $80.

Perhaps you've been eying a system memory upgrade. Good news: there's a 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600 kit on sale for $90 before a $30 rebate. This HIS Radeon HD 6970 looks mighty tempting, too. In addition to $30 in instant savings, a $40 rebate brings the card down to $290. HIS throws in a free copy of Deus Ex: Human Revolution to sweeten the pot.

Thanksgiving was weeks ago in Canada, but that hasn't stopped NCIX from running its own Black Friday sale. The Canadian e-tailer seems to have discounted more items than Newegg, and there are plenty of interesting deals to be had. Some of our favorites include Corsair's Carbide 400R, which is only $75 before a $10 mail-in rebate. $20 for a 4GB of Corsair Vengeance memory is a pretty good deal, too. There are also discountsonseveral LCD monitors with IPS and MVA panels if you're not enticed by all the cheap TN displays floating around today. For those who prefer their IPS screens in tablet form, Asus' 16GB Eee Pad Transformer has been dropped to $350 without any rebate nonsense attached.

Neither the Transformer nor the LCDs are available through the Black Friday sale being put on by NCIX's US operation. The Carbide and Vengeance DIMMs are still discounted in that sale, though, and they have interesting company. A 230GB OCZ RevoDrive PCIe SSD, for example, is half price at $250. You can also snag a Radeon HD 6870 for just $140 after rebate.